Only Five Federal Agencies Improved Their CX Scores from a Year Ago
Despite a year of intense focus on customer experience (CX), federal CX remains far worse than the private sector—according to Forrester’s U.S. Customer Experience Index 2016 (CX Index), 73% of federal agencies fell into the lowest two categories (poor and very poor), and agencies averaged a paltry score of 58 out of 100 compared with the private sector’s average score of 70.
Forrester recently released a new report that takes a closer look at the CX scores of 15 major federal agencies and programs, identifying the ways that Washington is failing to serve its customers with satisfactory experiences. The research confirms that federal CX is weak because agencies do not focus their efforts on the drivers of great customer experiences that matter. Instead, agencies have three big strikes against them: They ignore emotion, obsess over technologies instead of empowering employees to perfect customer interactions, and concentrate on what customers claim to want rather than what data shows actually drives better CX.
“Federal agencies have their CX priorities all wrong, and it shows,” said Rick Parrish, principal analyst and government CX expert at Forrester, in a news release. “Though technology plays an important role in CX, creating a mobile app or another digital offering does not necessarily give customers the emotional solution or support that they are looking for. Customers want the advances that digital brings, but only when it’s done right—and right now, agencies are failing at that mission.”
The 15 government and federal agencies ranked in the 2016 US CX Index, listed in order of lowest to highest scores, are:
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Department of Education
Transportation Security Administration
Internal Revenue Service
Medicaid
Department of Veterans Affairs
Small Business Administration
Social Security Administration
Medicare
US Citizenship and Immigration Services
Tricare
United States Postal Service
Bureau of Consular Affairs, and
National Park Service
The scores ranged from 42 to 76.
To help government officials overcome these CX obstacles, Parrish is hosting Forrester’s first government-focused event, CXDC, at the W in Washington, D.C., on September 12. To register, visit forr.com/CXDC2016.
Source: Business Wire; edited by Richard Carufel